Catching up...

So after a week or so of malaria recovery, I’m back to blogging! Two Fridays ago a few of us tro-tro’d to my friend Caitlin’s internship site in a nearby town to help her with an event the clinic was putting on for the children of their patients. While her clinic works with a variety of public health issues, one of the most prevalent is its attention to HIV/AIDS. Spending the morning playing “red light, green light” and “duck-duck-goose” with kids who are children of HIV/AIDS patients or who carry the disease themselves, was both super fun and silently agonizing. To meet these kids, some as young as five years old, who were born with or have developed this life-long disease is tragic -- but, to see the joy and the laughter they greet each day with is equally inspiring.  The clinic itself was organized and clean and the doctors showed such genuine love and care for their jobs and for their patients. It is this kind of positive environment that makes the struggles facing the victims of this disease seem hopeful.

After many, many rounds of duck-duck-goose the kids started to head home and we hopped on a tro-tro back to campus to start gearing up for the Friday night Ghana v. Swaziland game in downtown Accra. Gideon, one of our awesome U-PALS, set us up with a giant city bus to take everyone to the game. From University to the stadium, rush-hour traffic witnessed a bus full of Oburonis and Ghanaians singing “We will, we will, rock you” and its Ghanaian equivalent at the top of our lungs. It was awesome.

 Once at the stadium I bargained (badly) for jerseys, bandanas, facepaint etc and headed inside. I always love the last few steps before you enter a stadium. The way the tunneled ramp muffles the sound of the people already cheering so that when you eventually reach the landing, you are instantly hit by the field and the fans and the sea of red, gold, and green black star jerseys and Ghanaian flags. The game itself was awesome – lots of dancing and cheering and pretty similar to games back home but with a Ghanaian twist… vendors selling Joloff rice instead of pretzels and plantains instead of nachos. Delicious. Ghana beat Swaziland 2-0!!!

The next morning I woke up a bit late and ended up bolting across campus (40 minutes away…) to catch a 6am bus to Cape Coast, a city about three hours outside of Accra. Some friends and I heard about a festival going on there and decided to check it out. We had no idea what to expect but it ended up being awesome. The festival brought everyone out of their homes and the whole city was full of color and music. Men and women in every kind of fabric and costume paraded through the streets singing songs and performing dances. All of them were escorts to the Chief and Queen Mother who use this annual festival as a way to meet with chiefs from surrounding areas to discuss plans for the upcoming year. The parade ended in a giant pavilion placed in front of Cape Coast Castle and because the following ceremony was spoken entirely in the local language, an eleven-year-old Ghanaian named Steven kept me in the loop. Eventually the president of Ghana, John Atta Mills, arrived and gave a speech. It’s insane how different security is for the Mills v. Obama but it was amazing to be that close to the leader of this young democracy. The bus I had planned on taking left before the end of the ceremony so my friend and I decided to meet up with other students we knew were in the city and stay the night. On the way to meet them we got caught in a spontaneous parade of hundreds of people dancing through the streets to a brass band. They were huge fans of the enthusiasm we put into our hopeless Oburoni dance moves.

The students we eventually met up with were exploring the city with Iggy, a Ghanaian friend of ours who is originally from Cape Coast and who invited whoever was available to see where he was from. In true Ghanaian form, Iggy was overly hospitable buying us plantain chips and popcorn and taking us to all his favorite places. We started with dinner at a bar/restaurant right on the water and eventually moved to a huge concert at a gas station parking lot where an awesome high-life band was performing. The lead singer noticed how chaotic the front rows were and pulled some of us on stage to dance with her/save us from the crowd. I’m sure I looked ridiculous but looking out on all of the people dancing and singing along made it worth it, who knew a gas station could be such a hot spot?

After checking out another concert/dance performance in the middle of the city, we headed back to our hotel for some much needed sleep. The next morning we met up with everyone again and had breakfast on a hill right next to the Cape Coast Castle that offers a beautiful view of the water. Slow morning at its finest.

Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera with me to Cape Coast but it really was a beautiful city. It is a lot smaller than Accra so all the entertainment is close together which makes exploring a lot easier. Plus, there is significantly less traffic so the whole city is a bit more relaxed. After breakfast we walked around for a bit, found a bus headed back to Accra, and three-ish hours later we were back on campus.

The next morning my roommate Megan and I went running and about ten minutes after we got back I started feeling super dizzy/feverish and ended up going to the hospital and being diagnosed with malaria. I had great people with me and terrific doctors so once I had medicine I started feeling a lot better. The only bummer was that I had to miss most of my classes but luckily I recovered by the end of the week and now I’m back in action! More adventures to come!